ISLAMABAD: Despite tougher criteria set by the government, the students of 5th and 8th grades from Gilgit-Baltistan have given a stunning performance in the Board of Elementary Examination, shows the official data.
For the first time, the passing criteria was made tougher this year by increasing the passing marks from 33% to 40% and by introducing formative assessment of 30% marks.The results’ analysis shows that the overall academic performance of elementary school students in the recent GB level examination has improved from 77% to 87%.
According to the data shared by Chief Secretary Gilgit-Baltistan Mohiddin Wani, the overall result of students of grade 5 all over the province improved from 69 percent to 81 percent if compared with the previous year, while the results of students from grade 8 improved from 86 percent to 94 percent.
Collectively, a total of 30065 male and female students appeared in the centralized examination across the province. Out of them, the total number of students that passed the exams stood at 25814.
Overall, the results of students from Hunza, Gilgit, and Ghizer districts have improved immensely with 27%, 23% and 18% increase respectively.Hunza stood at the top out of the total appearances in each district of Gilgit-Baltistan. Over 96 percent of the total students passed the central exam of grade 5 and 8 in Hunza district.
Interestingly, girls have performed better in both grades as compared to boys and have taken all the first three leading positions in both grades across Gilgit-Baltistan.It is pertinent to mention that for the first time in the history of GB, grades 5 & 8 annual examination was centralized with comparatively standardized procedures.
Talking with The News, Deputy Director Research Board of Elementary Examination Zaheer Abbas told The News that for the first time in the history of Gilgit-Baltistan, grades 5 & 8 annual examination were taken centralized through a recently established board named as Board of Elementary Examination, Gilgit-Baltistan.
He explained how various reforms were made in the examination including introduction of formative assessment.The formative assessment included several quality education indicators, which are, classroom participation of students, participation in co-curricular activities, personal management, cleanliness and hygiene, attendance, leadership skills and so on, said Mr Zaheer.
Specific rubrics were designed for assessment of the quality indicators and these were validated by the experts, he said.The weightage for formative assessment in the final examination was worth 30 marks this time in each subject and additionally, the question papers were developed and validated by the content experts and practitioners from various subjects.
Specific marking schemes were also developed for the assessment of answers. Technology was integrated in different assessment and data punching centers were making the assessment and result compilation process efficient and accurate. These reforms not only helped in improving the learning outcomes of the students, but also made the examination procedures more standardized and improved.
The data shared with this correspondent reflects that a total of 5465 students appeared from Skardu for the exams of both grades out of which 4739 students passed the exam.In Ghanche, 3218 students appeared for both 8th and 5th grade. A total of 2964 students passed these exams.
From Shigar, students who appeared for central examination of grade 5th and 8th stood at number 2678 and out of these, 2127 students passed these exams.In Kharmang, 1395 students appeared and 1209 passed the exams. Gilgit made 4976 appearances of students from both grades out of which 4003 passed the exams.
From Ghizer, 3598 students appeared while 3200 passed the exams. In Nagar, 1327 students appeared and 977 passed the exam. From Astore and Diamer, 2735 and 3921 students appeared out of which 2156 and 3350 passed the exams respectively.
